Calgary stampedes Eskimos

Football Betting Lines

09/06/2010 - Calgary, AB (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Henry Burris threw three touchdowns and Calgary rolled to a sixth straight win by forcing six Eskimos turnovers en route to a a 52-5 rout in the annual Labour Day Classic.

Burris finished with 226 yards and an interception on 15-of-23 passes, tossing two of his TDs to Romby Bryant, who logged five receptions for 80 yards.

Joffrey Reynolds led the running game with 85 yards and a score on 18 carries as the Stampeders kept their two-game lead atop the Western Conference.

Ricky Ray was ineffective under center for Edmonton, completing a mere 9-of-22 passes through the air for 157 yards and two interceptions, one of which Brandon Smith returned for a touchdown. Ray also lost a fumble, while Jared Zabransky was picked off twice in relief for the Eskimos, who lost to Calgary 56-15 on August 15 before knocking off Saskatchewan last week.

Edmonton's Noel Prefontaine recorded a pair of singles around a 29-yard field goal from counterpart Rob Maver in the opening quarter.

Calgary added a conceded safety later in the frame, and Reynolds' nine-yard jaunt around the left end accounted for the first touchdown and a 12-2 Stampeders lead in the first minute of the second stanza.

Shortly thereafter, Burris hit Bryant on a fade down the right sideline for a 30-yard score.

Prefontaine booted a 31-yarder to stop some of the hosts' momentum, but Smith returned his interception -- the third in as many plays -- 58 yards for a score late in the quarter.

Just before the half, Burris found Ken-Yon Rambo in the end zone from 10 yards out for a comfortable 33-5 score at the break.

A Burris-to-Bryant hookup of 19 yards near the nine-minute mark was the only TD of the third quarter.

The final score came as a result of another conceded safety by Edmonton in the third, a Maver single in the final stanza, an intentional grounding call in the end zone on Ray with just over five minutes left, and Drew Tate's pass into the flat to Deon Murphy for a 12-yard TD three minutes later.

Game Notes

Edmonton had a total of five yards rushing on nine carries, compared to 188 on 32 for Calgary...Calgary won the yardage battle by a whopping 502-152 margin...Kelly Campbell posted 80 yards on four catches for the Eskimos...Burris passed Dieter Brock (34,830 yards) into 10th place on the CFL's all-time passing list...These teams play again on September 10 in Edmonton.

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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

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